(GIST) Liam Neeson thinks women should be paid equally, but he won’t take a pay cut

Liam Neeson thinks women should be paid equally, but he won’t take a pay cut

For some reason, I actually sat through that terrible Liam Neeson film Non-Stop. It’s the one where he’s on a plane and people are manipulating him with phones and sh-t and he has to save the day. Liam has had a late-in-life career resurgence with these kinds of dumb, interchangeable action films, like the Taken movies, or Run All Night, and his current film, The Commuter. The Commuter looks like Non-Stop on a train. That’s it. Like they took the exact f–king script from Non-Stop and said “okay, but what if he was on a train?”

If you wonder why a 65-year-old man with a questionable toupee keeps taking all of these dumb roles, the answer is MONEY. Ever since Taken was a surprise and runaway hit, Liam can easily pocket ten-figure salaries for these relatively inexpensive action movies. Even if they don’t do crazy box office in America, they can be (and are) sold heavily overseas. It’s all part of complicated math that goes into how the Hollywood sausage is made, and why someone like Liam is seen as an actor whose films can be “sold” overseas, where Denzel Washington’s films cannot (insert eyeroll). But it also means that Liam has grown accustomed to his ten-figure paychecks and he won’t be giving them up any time soon, not even if for pay equality. From an interview he did with the Associated Press to promote The Commuter:

THE EQUALIZER: #LiamNeeson on the "disgraceful" pay gap between men and women. Contains swearing. pic.twitter.com/wT3l1LJf8M

— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) January 11, 2018

Re: pay inequality: “There’s a lot of discussion about it and a lot of healthy and necessary discussion about it, because the pay disparity is, sometimes, f–king disgraceful…” When asked what can be done, he says, “It’s starting… it’s starting with these extraordinary actresses and brave ladies and we, as men, have gotta be part of it. We started it, so we have to be part of the solution.” When asked if he would “take a pay cut to even things out” he says, “NO! Pay cut? No, no, no, no, no. That’s going too far. There has to be parity. There just has to be.” I mean, I can’t even tell if he’s half-joking when he says “No, that’s going to far.” Is he joking? Or only half-joking, because of course he’s not going to take a f–king paycut. He’s all for the ladies getting paid more, of course, but not if it means he will only get paid $8 million instead of $10 million.

(Left unspoken: how many 65-year-old actresses get a late-in-life career surge by playing action heroines? Exactly. It’s not like this is even a career choice for women. PATRIARCHY.)